Until recent years, only a trickle of people from abroad were opting to live here and, understandably, public policy focused on establishing an economy that would stem the crippling brain drain that drove thousands of well educated, highly skilled Irish graduates to move overseas.

The need to set up a first class immigration system was not high on either the public or the political agenda.

That situation has now changed, changed utterly.

It is almost universally accepted that the core definition of economic and cultural success in the 21st century will be enhanced human capital and brain power. Now that we are in an era of almost full employment, Ireland must reposition itself as a prime destination for the world's most talented and accomplished workers if it is to maintain competitiveness.

The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs has highlighted the need for effective and efficient migration procedures to enable Ireland compete successfully on a global scale for scarce highly skilled and mobile talent.

We must also recognise that, in the main, Ireland's requirements for unskilled migrants will be met by fellow European citizens moving to Ireland from within the EU for the foreseeable future.

A recent study by Chambers Ireland compared the immigration practices of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US with those in place here. These countries were selected because they have a legal system derived from the British Common Law system, as is Ireland's.

That study of best practice revealed significant gaps in Ireland. The country is not alone in its need for skilled talent and those that can offer permanent residency, work permits for partners on arrival and ultimate citizenship are, understandably, more attractive to highly educated and sought-after professionals, such as engineers, scientists, nurses and medical practitioners.

The study recommends a number of reforms which, if implemented, would help ensure that Ireland becomes a magnet for those highly skilled foreign nationals who will aid the ongoing development of our economy and society.

These are the kind of people that Ireland needs as we seek to reach our goal of a knowledge-driven, highly productive economy.

If Ireland is to compete successfully for the ambitious and energetic people that the US, Australia and other highcost economies attract from around the world, then we must ensure that we have the practices in place to facilitate their coming and staying here.

Our recommendations are as follows:

1.Make the option of permanent residency and, ultimately, citizenship for skilled workers explicit in the Employments Permits Bill.

2.Ensure a clear pathway to citizenship. The Employment Permits Bill should provide for a guaranteed method by which to achieve citizenship through a transparent and well-defined process. While Minister Micheal Martin has given strong indications that this will be provided for on enactment of this legislation, Chambers Ireland believes that the Bill must explicitly include this facility in the primary legislation.

3.Introduce a points system for assessing the eligibility of candidates for Irish work visas, as applies in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Under these systems, points are awarded to candidates based on the skills needs of the country as well as their work experience and English language abilities.

Implemented correctly, a transparent points system has the potential to speed up the application procedure and to significantly cut the number of appeals made regarding visa allocation.

4.Ensure automatic provision of work visas to the partners of immigrants in receipt of work visas upon their arrival in Ireland. Barriers to partners enjoying full access to employment act as an obstacle to potential immigrants to Ireland. Granting an automatic work visa to the partners of skilled immigrants would enhance Ireland's status as an economy that welcomes new talent.

5.Broaden the definition of partners to include those in same-sex and stable cohabiting relationships. Compared to other countries seeking to attract foreign workers, our current criteria for determining what types of relationships qualify for partner immigration is very restrictive.

In Ireland, only the spouses of immigrants are taken into account by the immigration system. Even then they are not automatically allowed to work on arrival in Ireland.

Chambers Ireland welcomes the establishment of the Working Group on Domestic Partnership and believes its work should lead to a broadening of immigration legislation to include those in stable cohabiting relationships.

6.Ensure that the children of skilled migrants recruited to Ireland, including those in education up to the age of 23, are allowed entry. The current age up to which parents can apply for a visa for their children is 18. This is at odds with Irish family law legislation, which dictates that a child is a dependent up to the age of 23 while he or she is in education.

We need to implement measures to facilitate skilled mobile workers with families relocating to Ireland and should consider raising the cap on dependent immigration to 23.

7.Establish an online immigration service to enable electronic application processing and tracking. Using the New Zealand immigration website as its model, a "one-stop shop" for potential immigrants should be established to deal with all aspects of the process.

8.Replace antiquated and offensive terminology for new Irish residents. Most observers agree that Ireland should strive to be recognised as an open and welcoming society, and we need to ensure that outsiders looking at Ireland as a possible emigration destination are reassured that this is the reality.

In this context, a complete review of the terminology used throughout the immigration process should be undertaken. Specifically, the offensive term "non-national" should be done away with and replaced with "foreign national".

9.Rename the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service. This agency's acronym, INIS (meaning island in Irish) is an unfortunate name for an agency established by a country wishing to welcome immigrants and should be changed.

I suspect it was no mistake that the Police Service of Northern Ireland was not called the ostensibly more pertinent Northern Irish Police Service!

10. Establish public citizenship ceremonies. Given that Irish citizens are citizens of a republic, and that we have legacy issues regarding Oaths of Allegiance and so forth, we need to establish appropriate rites of passage and ceremonies that underscore the value of Irish citizenship.

Taking all of these reforms in hand offers every prospect of ensuring that Ireland can continue to compete for talented migrants who will contribute to our society . . . for the benefiting of all.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Sir, Michael O'Reilly's article (obsession with privatisation is the real cause of the energy struggle, 'Sunday Tribune' Business, May 21), unleashed a few red herrings. On a global basis, electricity prices have been rising sharply as a result of jumps in the price of gas and oil. In Ireland, this effect has been exaggerated by incomplete market liberalisation in some European markets, which are currently the subject of EU investigation and dawn raids on energy businesses.

Mr O'Reilly's statement that "price rises can't be put down to rising fuel prices" is just plain wrong. If the cost of the fuel needed for Ireland's power stations is not covered by the price of electricity, there is only one other way that it can be paid for: in the tax bill!

Mr. O'Reilly states that in "most other counties" governments fund investment in the national grid. That is also wrong. In many liberalised markets, private funding, stringent cost ef"ciency measures and regulatory regimes ensure adequate "nance and improving reliability. Over the last decade it has been commonplace for the cost of running electricity grids to actually fall. Mr O'Reilly is right to question the Public Service Obligation levy that provides a subsidy for uneconomic operations and prevents progress and infrastructure investment by new market entrants. In the face of high international fuel costs, Ireland should take every opportunity to remove costs from energy bills and promote competition in order to stimulate ef"ciency gains and drive down costs.